For more information about Vanguard funds or Vanguard ETFs, visit advisors.vanguard.com or call 800-997-2798 to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.

Investments in bond funds are subject to interest rate, credit, and inflation risk.

Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss.

Investments in stocks or bonds issued by non-U.S. companies are subject to risks including country/regional risk and currency risk.

All investing is subject to risk, including possible loss of principal.

The concept of “investing success,” as it often appears in the media, is a tangled web to me. Every time I read about the topic, I can’t help feeling that the author is confusing two very different outcomes: investment success and investor success.

This is nuanced but consequential. Too often, investment success is defined by either absolute or relative returns (which is another nuance for another time). And, while I understand why a portfolio manager would focus on higher returns, higher returns shouldn’t be the benchmark for success for typical investors. Instead, typical investors should focus on building the wealth they need to fulfill the objectives that matter the most to them. Wealth is measured in dollars, not percents.

Sure, higher returns can build wealth faster, but they are not essential to building wealth. Investing is a partnership between an investor and the markets, whereby an investor provides the capital and the markets provide the prospects for a return on that capital. Understanding this relationship introduces a most important point for building wealth: the power of capital contributions or, more generally, saving. A portfolio’s value can grow through both capital contributions and return on capital, but only capital contributions can grow wealth reliably. Saving is our contribution to our own investment success and, importantly, unlike the investment returns we seek, its benefits are both more certain and within our control.

As illustrated in the chart above, moving from a more conservative asset allocation to a more aggressive one tends to widen the range of expected outcomes. At any asset allocation, greater saving results in higher best, worst, and median expected outcomes. What is often overlooked, however, is that higher capital contributions allow investors to improve their expected outcomes not only relative to the same asset allocation, but also to higher risk allocations. For example, the majority of potential outcomes are better with a 6% contribution rate and a moderate risk (50% stocks/50% bonds) portfolio than a 4% savings rate and an aggressive (80% stocks/20% bonds) portfolio.

Higher returns are welcomed, but they are a less reliable source of wealth creation. A most extreme version of this scenario played itself out on the national stage with the recent Powerball lottery and its $1 billion-plus jackpot. While the lottery gave players a chance for a fabulous return on their $2 ticket, probabilitywise, players’ wealth would have increased more certainly if they hadn’t played the lottery at all (since they’re most likely to lose their whole “investment” in lottery tickets).

Investing involves trade-offs. An important aspect of financial planning is for investors to define their willingness to forgo spending now to improve their prospects for building wealth that can provide for future needs. This critically important step presents an opportunity for a financial advisor to add value through behavioral coaching, to demonstrate how a higher savings rate provides a higher probability of investor success. It partially shifts responsibility for building wealth from the less certain risky-asset returns to the more certain stream of capital contributions. In the end, if an investor is trying to maximize future wealth, a marginally higher savings rate, rather than a substantially higher risk portfolio, is the most likely path to success.

Notes:

All investing is subject to risk, including possible loss of principal.

Be aware that fluctuations in the financial markets and other factors may cause declines in the value of your account. There is no guarantee that any particular asset allocation or mix of funds will meet your investment objectives or provide you with a given level of income.

Investments in stocks or bonds issued by non-U.S. companies are subject to risks including country/regional risk and currency risk.

IMPORTANT: The projections or other information generated by the Vanguard Capital Markets Model regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results, and are not guarantees of future results. VCMM results will vary with each use and over time.

The VCMM projections are based on a statistical analysis of historical data. Future returns may behave differently from the historical patterns captured in the VCMM. More important, the VCMM may be underestimating extreme negative scenarios unobserved in the historical period on which the model estimation is based.

The VCMM is a proprietary financial simulation tool developed and maintained by Vanguard’s primary investment research and advice teams. The model forecasts distributions of future returns for a wide array of broad asset classes.

Those asset classes include U.S. and international equity markets, several maturities of the U.S. Treasury and corporate fixed income markets, international fixed income markets, U.S. money markets, commodities, and certain alternative investment strategies. The theoretical and empirical foundation for the Vanguard Capital Markets Model is that the returns of various asset classes reflect the compensation investors require for bearing different types of systematic risk (beta). At the core of the model are estimates of the dynamic statistical relationship between risk factors and asset returns, obtained from statistical analysis based on available monthly financial and economic data from as early as 1960. Using a system of estimated equations, the model then applies a Monte Carlo simulation method to project the estimated interrelationships among risk factors and asset classes as well as uncertainty and randomness over time. The model generates a large set of simulated outcomes for each asset class over several time horizons. Forecasts are obtained by computing measures of central tendency in these simulations. Results produced by the tool will vary with each use and over time.

Don Bennyhoff

He is a member of the group responsible for capital markets research and the asset allocations used in Vanguard’s fund-of-fund solutions, such as the Target Retirement Funds. The group is also responsible for maintaining and enhancing the investment methodology used for advice-based relationships with high-net-worth and institutional clients.

In addition, Mr. Bennyhoff has authored a number of research papers on topics of concern for institutional and ultra-high-net-worth audiences. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Furman University, has been in the financial services industry since 1991, and is a CFA charterholder.

What was the starting value of each of the portfolios? Was assumed to start at $0, $10,000, $100,000, etc. What is the dollar value of saving 4% vs. 6%? Is it 4% vs. 6% of $100,000 for $4,000 vs. $6,000 saved annually? Is the time frame 10 years of returns/savings but using projected 30 year nominal returns or is it saving for 30 years? Thanks for the clarification.

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For more information about Vanguard funds or Vanguard ETFs, visit advisors.vanguard.com or call 800-997-2798 to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.

Investments in bond funds are subject to interest rate, credit, and inflation risk.

Diversification does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss.

Investments in stocks or bonds issued by non-U.S. companies are subject to risks including country/regional risk and currency risk.

All investing is subject to risk, including possible loss of principal.

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